Internet & Computer Safety

Internet SafetyThere are hundreds of ways that computers record a lot of information about what you look at on the Internet, the emails you send, and other activities on your computer . If you are in danger, please try to use a safer computer that someone abusive does not have direct access, or even remote (hacking) access to. It might be safer to use a computer in a public library, at a community technology center (CTC) www.ctcnet.org (national directory), at a trusted friend’s house, or an Internet Café.

If you think your activities are being monitored, they probably are. Abusive people are often controlling and want to know your every move. You don’t need to be a computer programmer or have special skills to monitor someone’s computer activities – anyone can do it and there are many ways to monitor. Additionally, email is not a safe or confidential way to talk to someone about the danger or abuse in your life, please call a hotline instead. Traditional “corded” phones are more private than cell phones or cordless phones.

While it may not possible to delete or clear all computer “footprints,” here are some steps you can take to protect your privacy and limit the ability of your partner and others from seeing you've visited this or other help-seeking websites:

(These steps will not harm your computer in any way. However, should your partner check for these records, they may realize that you or someone has deleted the history records.) If this happens, and you are the only other person using that computer, a good reason to give for your actions (if necessary) would be that you heard or read that by deleting these temporary history files your computer would be faster and waste less disk space, which is true.

STEP 1 - Clearing Out Your Browser and History:

Internet Explorer 8

  1. From the Safety menu in the upper right, click Delete Browsing History... .

  2. Check Temporary Internet files, Cookies, and History, and then click Delete.

Internet Explorer 7

  1. From the Tools menu in the upper right, select Delete Browsing History.

  2. Next to "Temporary Internet Files", click Delete files... .

    To delete your cookies, click Delete Cookies.

  3. Click Close, and then click OK to exit.

Firefox 3.5 for Windows

  1. From the Tools menu, select Clear Recent History... .

  2. From the Time range to clear: drop-down menu, select the desired range; to clear your entire cache, select Everything.

  3. Click the down arrow next to "Details" to choose what history elements to clear (e.g., check Cookies to clear cookies). Click Clear Now.

Firefox 3 for Windows

From the Tools menu, select Clear Private Data... , and then check Cache and Cookies. Click Clear Private Data Now.

Safari

  1. From the Safari menu, select Empty Cache... and Cookies... .

  2. When prompted, click Empty to confirm that you want to empty the cache.

Firefox 3.5 for Mac OS X

  1. From the Tools menu, select Clear Recent History... .

  2. From the Time range to clear: drop-down menu, select the desired range; to clear your entire cache, select Everything.

  3. Click the down arrow next to "Details" to choose what history elements to clear. Click Clear Now.

Firefox 3 for Mac OS X

  1. In Firefox, from the Tools menu, select Clear Private Data.

  2. Make sure Cache and Cookies are checked, and then click Clear Private Data Now.

NOTE: If you are running a browser other than those listed above and would like more information on how to clear your browser's cache, please refer to your browser's help file or try this link.

STEP 2 - Clearing Your Computer's History for Windows:
At all times, Windows keeps a chronological history of all web pages that you visit while online. For your safety, you may want to delete the record of web pages you have visited. It is a very simple process which will not in any way affect your computer other than to erase the fact that you have visited certain pages.

How to clear your computer's history of web pages you have visited (Windows 95 and higher) :
1. Click the tab marked History in the toolbar of Internet Explorer.
2. Your web pages visited history will appear on the left.
3. Under today's pages, highlight the names of pages you wish to remove from the history and hit the delete key on your keyboard on each page name highlighted.
4. Exit your Internet browser. This method will only delete the selected pages.
5. To clear all of your history, follow steps 1 and 2 above then push button that says "Clear History." The computer will ask if you are sure you want to do this, press "Yes."

How to clear your computer's history of web pages you've visited   (Windows 3.1 or older):
On your Internet browser click on Tools
Click Internet Options
In the section called Temporary Internet Files, click Delete Files then click OK
In the section called History, click Delete History then click OK
NOTE: This method will delete all pages visited since history began.

Adapted from www.dvpsh.org & www.nnedv.org websites 2005.